At the time in which To Kill A Mockingbird is set, the whole world and especially America, was suffering from the Great Depression. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 had left the richest of people broke- and the poorest of people with even less than they had before. Throughout the whole book poverty is one of the most dominant themes.
             In To Kill A Mockingbird, people like the Cunninghams were said to be worse off. Atticus had said that the crash had hit the country folk hardest. The only way Walter Cunningham or anyone in the same situation as him could pay something back was by entailments. He paid Atticus with things such as bags of hickory nuts, stovewood, turnip greens, smilax and holly. That was the only way he could cover his debts because he had no money. As the Cunninghams had no money to pay for a lawyer, they simply paid with what they had. Entailments were only part of Walter Cunningham's vexations. The acres not entailed were mortgaged to the hilt, and the little cash he made went to interest. Even though he was so poor, he still had his pride. 'Mr Cunningham, said Atticus, came from a set breed of men'. It was possible for Mr Cunningham to get a WPA job, but his land would go to ruin if he left it, and he was willing to go hungry to keep his land and vote as he pleased. The privilege to vote wa!
             s taken very seriously and a man would make many sacrifices to have the right to take part in an election. People like Walter Cunningham and his family may have been extremely poor, but they had morals. They would no take anything they could not pay back, and they got along with what they had.
             There was another class of poor folk- white trash like Bob Ewell. People such as Ewell had no morals, nor did they have self-respect. Robert E. Lee Ewell had no other income other than relief checks, and all of that he spent on alcohol. Atticus said the Ewells were members of an
             ...